Day 26, finally. Gosh I had issues with this one. First it didn't want to start, and then it didn't want to end! But thank god, it's done. :) Now I can spend my non-existent energy on day 27 and 30. :P Anyway, go ahead and read this enormous one-shot…

(rated K+, Humor, Mr. Lancer, Danny Fenton/Phantom, OC, 2873 words)


Day 26: Lancer


The clock hit seven when Mr. Lancer stepped through the doors of Casper High.

"Ah, right on time, as always."

He continued his way to the teachers' lounge, planning on getting some coffee to start the day. The teacher's lounge was still silent and only principal Ishiyama was present.

"Good morning Mr. Lancer. Right on time again I see?"

Lancer nodded, picking a cup and pouring himself some coffee from the machine. In the meantime, principal Ishiyama continued talking.

"Would you have time today to show a new candidate teacher around? You don't have to do much, just let her observe the lessons."

Lancer got excited in an instant. People who decided to become teacher were always interesting to him. He loved his job and he was sure that others would love it just as much if they tried it. "I would be delighted! Who is this new candidate?"

Principal Ishiyama smiled, obviously relieved she found someone who was willing to help her out. "I'll go get her." And with that she quickly walked out to pick up the new teacher, leaving a curious Mr. Lancer behind.

It didn't take long before she came back again, followed by a young woman. She was a lot taller than Principal Ishiyama, had curly, blond hair that reached until her shoulder and blue eyes with glasses. She wore a tight-fitting suit, made from a long, black skirt and blouse, with black high heels. A brown leather shoulder bag was draped around her, and she looked around with a polite smile.

Principal Ishiyama took it on herself to introduce the newcomer. "Mr. Lancer, I want you to meet Laura Taylor. She's looking for a job. If she decides to stay here, she'll be our new geography teacher. Mrs. Taylor, this is Mr. Lancer, our vice-principal and English teacher."

Mr. Lancer stepped forward to greet her. "Hello Mrs. Taylor, nice to meet you."

She send him a warm smile in return. "Nice to meet you too, I look forward to see the school. The records look amazing."

Lancer nodded enthusiastic and grabbed his coffee to leave the Teacher's Lounge. "Yes, we have a lot of promising students here. And the school is up to date in everything, even the building. I'll show you around before we start class."

Laura followed him with great interest as he showed her around. She was dedicated to teaching he found out quickly, and that only made him more willing to tell as much as possible about his beloved Casper High.

Mr. Lancer was proud to be a teacher, and the job was made for him. There was nobody who knew more about English then he and he cared for every single student that got put in his class. As he made his way to his own classroom to close the tour and start the lessons he came across one of his favorite students. Jasmine Fenton. As Casper High's only student that had a chance of getting a scholarship for Harvard she was one of the most rewarding students to teach. This time however, something seemed off about her. Her hair was a mess, sticking out from under her blue headband, she had bags under her eyes and kept looking from right to left as if she was paranoid of something.

As soon as she spotted Mr. Lancer however, she rushed over and started rattling is such a quick pace he couldn't understand half of what she said.

"Mr. Lancer! Good to see you, I really need to talk to you, it's very urgent. Yesterday, the school asked me to do a report on the psychology of teenagers, and of course I said yes, but the date to finish it changed and now my whole schedule is off track! I need to do another research on Ghost Envy for Monday and I didn't even start it! There are finals coming and I need to prepare as good as possible, but my studying schedule brings my tutoring schedule in danger and if I don't help them, they fail! And if I let them fail then I'll never become a good psychologist! But I can't mess up my finals either! And if I make sure I'll prepare enough for the finals and tutor the others, then how on earth am I gonna finish the report?! And what about my research?! It's due to Monday! MONDAY! What am I gonna do?!"

Mr. Lancer was a moment too stunned to react. He never saw Jasmine acting like this. She was his top student! But she was looking so stressed at him he knew he had to say something soon just to calm her down, and next to him, Laura was glancing between him and Jasmine with a blank look on her face.

"Ehm, well Jasmine, first off all: calm down. I'm sure there is a solution for this problem. We just have to-"

He was cut off when something crashed into him at full speed. He just managed to catch himself before he fell down, and looked around to see a very dazed Danny Fenton sitting on the ground while rubbing his head.

"Mr. Fenton! How many time do I have to tell you? No running in the halls!"

Daniel looked up and smiled nervously. "Yeah, I'm sorry Mr. Lancer. It won't happen again, I was just-" He trailed off as a blue mist escaped his mouth. All of the sudden he seemed tense and looked around sharply before focusing back on Mr. Lancer.

"Yes Daniel, you were just what?"

Daniel looked around again, as if he was afraid a ghost would jump on them any moment and trampled to his feet. "I was just… just on my way to.. to.. to History! Yes! And I'm running late, so gotta go! Bye Mr. Lancer!

And before Lancer could answer Daniel already took off in a sprint, disappearing around the corner. He tried to call him back, but it was no use. The boy was gone. "Mr. Fenton! What did I say about running?! Come back!"

Throwing his hands up in despair he turned back to Jasmine, who wasn't paying any attention to him or Laura, but stared down the hall. Laura pulled her out of his thoughts.

"History? But History is the other way if I am told correctly."

Jasmine turned around faster than his students did when he threatened to give them a test if they didn't pay attention to him in five seconds.

"Y-yeah," she stuttered. "He.. he's being tutored in History because he's so bad. And.. I just remembered I am the one who's supposed to tutor him, so I better get going. Bye!"

And with that, Jasmine was also gone faster than he could react, not even waiting for him to give her advice like she asked him to do in the first place. Next to him, Laura was blinking in confusion at the scene she just witnessed.

"Who were those students?"

He signed, knowing this clearly didn't leave a good first impression on his students. "That were Jasmine and Daniel Fenton. Jasmine is Casper High's top student, and Daniel is her younger brother. He has much potential, but he doesn't use it and goofs around. He's one of my students who manages to get into the most trouble. Skipping class, falling asleep, almost never finishes his homework, and if he does it's in some sort of gibberish I can't read."

Laura nodded slowly. "Well, sounds like a real trouble student. But that girl, his sister, is she really the top student? She didn't make much of a calm impression."

"Oh no, I can assure you she is our top student. She just has a lot on her mind right now. You heard her didn't you? Besides, don't they say geniuses are often stressed?" Lancer turned back to Laura, smiling nervous and hoping his students would show their better side from now on. He led her around the corner and stopped dead in his tracks when Mikey, a class nerd and a genie in Maths was slammed into the lockers before his eyes by nobody less than Golden Boy Dash Baxter.

"Mr. Baxter! Just what do you think you're doing!?"

Dash turned around slowly, looking guilty at him and Laura. "S-Sorry Mr. Lancer, but Mikey here broke a deal we had so…" he trailed off, realizing the poor excuse wasn't going to work against two teachers.

"Spare me your excuses Mr. Baxter. Detention for you today."

Dash narrowed his eyes but nodded stiffly before turning around and stomping away. Lancer sighed and shook his head. "That boy is such a pain and a blessing at the same time for the school. I hope he learns to behave a little bit… anyway, I'll show you the sport fields. Did I tell you I used to be on the cheerleader team? I am a big fan of sport you see. And of cheering, cheering is almost as important as the sport self, because after all, where would the team be without their spirit? They need the pep talks and the support to win!"

They had barely set a foot outside before they were forced to stop by a large mob of Hippies and Ultra Recyclo Vegetarians, protesting against all the chemicals used in Science Experiments that could ruin the environment.

Laura blinked and looked from the mob to him, opening her mouth to say something he couldn't hear over the sound of the protest. But he decided he didn't want to hear it and pulled her back inside. "Maybe we should go to class, I have to prepare for my lesson. The tour will have to wait until recess." Maybe then, Sam Manson's protest would have shattered without its leader…


Lancer regretted agreeing to principal Ishiyama to let Laura observe his lessons. He should have thought it through. This was only the second lesson of today and he already felt like crying. Of course, the class he had at the moment was Daniel Fenton's class. And Heaven knew there was never a quiet, easy day with this class. For starters, none of his students were interested in today's lesson. They were all turned around in their seats, talking and laughing through his lecture. The upcoming football game appeared to be a much more interesting topic for them. Of course, Dash Baxter was the middle point of the attention, seeing as he would play as the quarterback again. He and Kwan -who was supposed to be sitting on the other side of the class to avoid this kind of situations- were busy throwing a football back and forth while they were talking about how they would humiliate Elmerton High.

Lancer knew he should have said something about it, but then Laura would know Kwan hadn't been sitting in his usual spot all lesson. No, this was better, at least the ball didn't fly through half of the classroom now.

He let his eyes trail through the rest of the classroom, getting more depressed at every student he saw. Paulina and Star were painting their nails bright pink, Sam Manson was doodling, Tucker Foley was playing on his PDA, and of course Daniel was trying to stay awake and failing miserably.

He took a step forward, ignored Sam Manson -because at least it looked like she was doing something and that was more than he could say about the others- and turned towards Tucker in an attempt to restore some order.

"Mr. Foley! Get that PDA out of my eyes or you can come back this afternoon!"

Tucker squeaked and hid the PDA in his pocket as fast as lightning before looking as innocent as possible.

In the next minutes the class finally seemed to be paying a little attention and Lancer thanked the Heavens for the regained control. Laura had finally stopped looking mildly judging and was writing notes. And then, as if it was the boy's life goal to ruin his reputation, Daniel's hand shot up and he exclaimed rather irritated "May I be excused!" before darting from his seat and being out of the door so soon Lancer was unable to answer 'No'.

And just like that, the class seemed to fall apart again, as even Valerie Gray who was normally a hard worker jumped up and screamed "May I be excused?" like Daniel hadn't just done it just a few seconds before.

This time however he was prepared and he stepped in front of the door before she was able to get outside, narrowing his eyes and pointing back to her seat.

"Absolutely not Miss Gray! We're at an important point in my lecture, and you can't afford to miss it, now can you?"

If Valerie's half glare, half hurt look was something to go on, he was being too strict here, but it was needed. His students were seriously off track. They needed discipline.

The next thing he noticed were the lights flickering and going out before all the boxes in the classroom started to float. Laura jumped up and started screaming when the Box Ghost appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the room.

"BEWARE! FOR I AM THE BOX GHOST! AND I WILL DESTROY YOU WITH MY BOXES OF DOOM!"

Now was the Box ghost not a ghost to be scared of. Everyone in Amity Park knew that, but one of the boxes flew into Paulina, who fell off her chair and gave a blood-chilling scream.

"I broke my nail! I just painted it and it's ruined! What am I supposed to do now? The cheerleading practice is tomorrow!"

The Box Ghost stopped his monologue to stare at her and send another box in her direction, which she easily dodged by jumping on a table. "Quiet! I'm talking about my Boxes of Doooom!" Unfortunately, the box was full of brand-new scalpels for the Science Project from next week. They flew everywhere, making his students all jump up in fear of being impaled. Paulina screamed even harder and climbed on top of a pile unused tables to get out of the way of the scalpels that were being hurled into her direction. Star and the other cheerleaders ran over and tried desperately to climb the pile and join her while Paulina started bawling her eyes out about how her life was unfair and her nails were not save anywhere and that she was too perfect to be impaled by stupid science knives. All his other students rushed past him and out of the door in blind panic. Dash and Kwan were running in circles, screaming like little girls. Valerie was yelling at the top of her lungs a detailed description of what the ghost would look like after she was done with it, which was strange because she didn't try anything at the moment other then yelling.

Desperate by now, Mr. Lancer jumped on top of his desk. "To Kill a Mockingbird! Everyone please stay calm! Paulina get down from there! Dash! Kwan! Stop running like idiots! Miss Laura, please stop screaming! It's just the Box Ghost for crying out loud!"

And then everyone did calm down, but not because of his efforts. No of course not. Instead, the ghost-kid Danny Phantom came crashing through the wall and with one swipe of the strange Thermos he seemed to carry around the Box Ghost disappeared into a swirl of blue. The scalpels clattered to the ground and Phantom was gone again, leaving the remaining students sighing in disappointment. Next to him, Valerie growled and stormed out of the room before he could stop her again, followed by all the remaining students, who sensed there wouldn't be any consequences if they left now.

Laura was hyperventilating, eyes wide and fearful and Lancer kicked himself for not telling her about the 'ghost-related problems' Casper High had on regular basis.

"Mrs. Laura, I'm so sorry. Casper High is a great school but-" His attempt to save whatever reputation the school had left was lost when she cut him off sharply. "I don't want to hear it! I think I saw enough for today! This school is insane, do you hear me?! Insane! Don't think for a minute a teacher like me would even consider teaching on a cursed school like this! I'm leaving, goodbye."

And with that she stormed out of the door, leaving him on his own in the now empty and destroyed classroom. Principal Ishiyama would have his head. But he didn't care at the moment, if she wanted the school to make a good impression, she would have to solve the ghost attacks and make sure all his problem students were expelled. Of course, that was impossible… so it didn't seem like there would be any new teachers joining from outside Amity Park any time soon…

But maybe it was better this way. He didn't think any outsiders would understand his students like he did. They might seem like problem teens, but there was potential in all of them. And as a teacher here, he could make sure they would be okay in a few years. Even if this job was insane in the eyes of colleagues from outside.


Hehehe, I like this despite all the problems I had with it. Lancer is fun to mess with, the poor guy, do we ever think about how his life looks like? And I only noticed just now how many references I threw in here. XD

Anyway, I want to thank my cousin Miranda for proof-reading this, and all the sweet people from the Phandom on Tumblr who told me what Principal Ishiyama's name was. :) Thanks a lot currently-lurking, beccadrawsstuff, kiotsukatanna, whatdoesthefauxsay, phantomrose96 and haikujitsu! ^^